This is a sociological study of physician-patient relationships in primary care with particular emphasis on current patterns of public challenges to physician authority. The study will attempt to secure empirical data to support or negate the impression as expressed in the media that patients are questioning medical recommendations, demanding accountability, and in general no longer offering doctors unalloyed respect and trust. This is a systematic assessment of trends already studied impressionistically abroad in exploratory research supported by the National Science Foundation. Semi-structured interviews with stratified random samples of primary care physicians and the public in metropolitan, urban, and small town settings will provide data to test the hypotheses that client age, general education, and health education, as well as the health care system characteristic of method of payment, pre-paid vs fee-for-service, are key predictors in explaining variability in the criterion of acceptance/rejection of physician authority. This dependent variable is conceptually distinct from compliance/non-compliance and satisfaction/dissatisfaction, and has not yet been studied empirically. To be taken into account in the analysis are various physician characteristics, and additional patient delivery system characteristics, as controls. The medical context has been selected for study as a prototype of professions, on the grounds that verified authority challenges in this case portend changes in authority relations in society in general. Moreover, if the age, education and method of payment variables are found to affect physician-patient relationships, important implications emerge for the organization and reorganization of the health-care delivery system.